


Questions Answered Before the Asking

by ALC_Punk



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Fluff and Angst, Timey-Wimey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-08-20 08:34:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20224903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ALC_Punk/pseuds/ALC_Punk
Summary: Thirteen discovers a DVD she wasn't expecting. The message it contains is one she can't resist answering. (No actual meeting between them occurs)





	Questions Answered Before the Asking

**Author's Note:**

> I don't think this technically counts as pining. 
> 
> Anyway, this is just a fluffy thing that completely steals from Moff's Blink.

A DVD was sitting on the console (it hadn't been there before, as far as she knew). The Doctor stared it suspiciously. She recalled, vaguely, the last time she'd been involved with something so seemingly benign. It had all worked out, of course, but there'd been unwarranted time travel involved and someone else knowing all about her (him) when they shouldn't have.

Still...

Never could resist a mystery, could she? And it wasn't as though nanites or termites could invade the TARDIS from a DVD. She hoped. It took a bit of fiddling, but she found the right slot, and slid it home, clicking the button which should have let it play. 

Lights flickered, and she half-laughed. “Not that one, obviously. Right--” she quickly turned a knob, then doffed another button.

_Perfect_. The hum in the TARDIS changed just a little, and she knew she'd got it right.

There was a moment before the DVD started playing that she considered just chucking it; pretending she'd never gotten it, or that it was something evil since the dawn of time. But the Gang were off doing human things, and she was idling about without much else to do. So.

DVD it was.

Planet-saving, tyranny-toppling, and new sights could wait. 

"You've done this bit before, you know."

Now there was a voice she knew! Brightening, but also feeling sad, she replied to the voice. After all, it would be rude not to. "'Course I have. I've done lots of things, me."

"Asking questions when you know I can't answer--"

"Says the woman who's favorite word is 'spoiler'." Scoffed the Doctor. Then she beamed as video cut in, and she could see River Song's face.

She looked older. Or younger. Always a bit hard to tell. Time Ladies, eh?

"You'd know, after all." There was that quirk to River's mouth that she loved. Had loved. Would love?

"I got to say it once, of course. Made my century."

"So you did," River laughed a little. "It was entertaining."

"One of these days, I'll have to go back and remind myself about it. Just for the fun of it. Not that I think crossing my own time stream is all that warranted. Maybe I'll just forget it--"

"You always did ramble on, my love."

The Doctor found herself stilling, closing her eyes against the melancholy that tugged at her heart. Fixed points of history were never her favorite thing, and this was just reminding her of all of them.

"Will you marry me? A girl really shouldn't ask, of course, but I thought it was time."

Eyes flying open, the Doctor stared at the DVD. Then she broke into a grin and reached out, fingers hovering over the screen. "'Course I will. I asked once before, didn't I? Didn't know how much I meant it, then."

"I know."

The DVD cut out, then, screen flickering to black.

Reaching out, the Doctor brushed her fingers over the telepathic matrix. "You will remember for me, won't you? Or remember before I remember? I do love that about you, old girl."

Surreptitiously wiping her eyes, she leant down and kissed the TARDIS console. "Existing at all points in time simultaneously. It's a wonder you ever get anything done."

Last of the TARDISes, or so the legends said. Yet here she was, puttering about with an aging Time Lady on exile a long way from home. Just the way both of them liked it, of course. Affection made the Doctor's fingers dance along the console, automatically filing the DVD away, feeling the little tickle that told her something extraordinary had occurred. 

It always did, on board her TARDIS. Why she could never, would never, give it up, in the end. 

There was a chitter from the phone Yaz had left, and the Doctor pushed away from the console to answer it. They'd be back soon, there would be more adventures. The melancholy fell away, though she briefly wondered how she and River would have looked in tuxes, standing at the top of a pyramid that never existed.

Perhaps one day, she'd try to find out.

Breaking the laws of time wasn't just an old man's game, after all.


End file.
